Conceptualizing Extreme Beliefs and Behaviors Definitions and Relations

by Peels, Rik; Horgan, John

• ISBN13: 9780197760192
• ISBN10: 0197760198
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197760215
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-08-19
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Concepts like extremism and radicalization are highly contested. Their definitions matter, because they influence how we study extremism and radicalization and, in the long run, how these are perceived in the public debate. Rather than adding more definitions, this book explores the underlying challenging conceptual issues in defining, interpreting, and operationalizing notions such as extremism, radicalization, fanaticism, and terrorism. It explores four crucial questions. First, how should each of these extreme phenomena be defined, and what are the desiderata in seeking definitions of each of them? Second, how should the project of defining and conceptualizing these phenomena be undertaken: in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, or family resemblances, or common understandings in the public debate, or something else? Third, what is the role of normativity in defining these extreme phenomena, that is, the proper place of normative or even pejorative concepts and the normative framework of the researcher? Fourth and finally, how do the phenomena of extremism, fanaticism, fundamentalism, terrorism, and conspiracism relate to one another and to things such as apocalypticism, nationalism, cults, charisma, and state terror? Written by global, multidisciplinary experts, this text lays the conceptual groundwork that the other volumes in the Extreme Belief and Behavior Series will build on.

Author Biography

Rik Peels is a university research chair in analytic and interdisciplinary philosophy of religion at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands and a Senior Research Associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. His research interests are the ethics of belief, ignorance, scientism, fundamentalism, and extremism. He currently leads the ERC-funded project Extreme Beliefs: The Epistemology and Ethics of Fundamentalism (www.extremebeliefs.com). He is a member of the Adapt Academy, which studies how societies adapt to crises.

John Horgan is Distinguished University Professor at Georgia State University's Department of Psychology, where he directs the Violent Extremism Research Group (VERG). His research examines terrorist psychology. His books include The Psychology of Terrorism, Divided We Stand: The Strategy and Psychology of Ireland's Dissident Terrorists, Walking Away from Terrorism, and Terrorist Minds: The Psychology of Violent Extremism from Al-Qaeda to the Far Right.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Rik Peels and John Horgan

I On Defining, Analyzing, and Normativity

Chapter 1: Extreme Beliefs as Unshakable Identity Beliefs
Lisa Bortolotti

Chapter 2: Who Do We Need to Historicize Terrorism, and How Should We Do It?
Beatrice de Graaf

Chapter 3: How to Do Things with Norms: Empirical and Normative Research on Extreme Beliefs and Social Identities
Juliette R. de Wit and Boudewijn de Bruin

Chapter 4: Are Conspiracy Theories Just Theories about Conspiracies?
M R. X. Dentith

Chapter 5: The Bonds of Belief: The Relationship between Terrorism and Ideology
Donald Holbrook

II Particular Definitions

Chapter 6: The Fundamentalism Matrix: A Tool for Defining, Mapping, and Operationalizing Fundamentalism
Nora Kindermann, Rik Peels, and Anke I. Liefbroer

Chapter 7: Defining Conspiracy Theory and Related Terms
Joseph Uscinski

Chapter 8: Fundamentalism
Steve Bruce

Chapter 9: Conceptualizing Fanaticism
Max Taylor

Chapter 10: The Language Game: The Relationship between Radicalization and Extremism
Michele Grossman

Chapter 11: Extremism and Ideology
Leor Zmigrod and Arie Kruglanski

Chapter 12: Terrorism
Leena Malkki

III Mapping Relations

Chapter 13: Extremism, Fanaticism, Fundamentalism, Terrorism: A Conceptual Map
Rik Peels, Ruth Rebecca Tietjen, John Horgan, and J. M. Berger

Chapter 14: The Puzzle of State Extremism
Jonathan Leader Maynard

Chapter 15: Fundamentalism and Extremism: A Philosophical Analysis
Quassim Cassam

Chapter 16: Extreme Beliefs and Echo Chambers
Finlay Malcolm and Chris Ranalli

Chapter 17: A Politics of Stasis: Temporal Framing and Extreme Political Beliefs
Nomi Claire Lazar

Chapter 18: The Second Risk: The Dangerous Dynamics of Totalist Systems
Alexandra Stein

Chapter 19: Affective Polarization, Wholeheartedness, and Fanaticism
Alessandra Tanesini

Epilogue
Rik Peels and John Horgan

Index